When the photos started arriving from Crimea and eastern Ukraine, I had a flashback. I’ve seen those guys, the ones in the leather jackets who emerge from the crowd, filled with venomous purpose. A few days later it hit me. Moscow in 1986. Church. We were there for the Goodwill Games, the Ted Turner sports jamboree, one of the great events I have ever covered. Crazy Ted, wandering around Moscow, the holy fool, screaming about saving the elephants. The city, warm and gentle in high summer, hospitable if threadbare in the time of glasnost. Older Russians getting tears in their eyes when they talked about the suffering in World War Two. My wife and I decided to go to church one Sunday morning, found a neighborhood Orthodox church, still open under the terms of Communism. There was incense, singing, a ritual up front, while in the back, older worshippers, mostly women, moved from corner to corner, bowing their gray heads reverently, kissing icons of their beloved saints. We were taken back to another time. The mood matched the feeling we received out in the street. While I worked at sports events, my wife took municipal buses to lavish circuses in distant neighborhoods. Old ladies appointed each other to watch out for her, made sure she got off at the right stop. We had also seen the old ladies brandishing umbrellas at traffic police who displeased them. This was their city, their world, still. Now, in church, in the heady cloud of incense, they prayed and kissed the icons. Then, a few young men materialized, wearing dark leather jackets in summer heat. Three or four of them meandered through the maze of icons and paintings, but not reverently, not at all. They stared at the worshippers, moving among them, nothing physical, but most intimidating. People ignored the thugs. I felt, well, I am an American, they might not want to menace me. In my pocket was a press badge that said: Игры доброй воли. I can still read it in Cyrillic and pronounce it. Goodwill Games. My wife and I stayed close to the thugs, spoke to each other in English. I have no idea if we affected them in the slightest. There was no recognition. They sauntered through the church, and left by a side door. I had not thought of them in decades. (I think more about Chernobyl, which had taken place a few weeks earlier, and still casts its poisonous shadow on the world.) But when the photos emerged from Crimea and eastern Ukraine recently, I felt a twinge in the pit of my memory. Putin kisses icons now. It’s a different time. Thugs still emerge from the shadows, thrusting their shoulders and elbows around.

I'll post the best thay I can, but I'll look for these guys when I'm in Moscow in mid-May. Hopefully, we will bve able to leave.

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bruce

4/29/2014 09:43:30 am

George,

not sure what to call Russia these days other than aggressive and obnoxious. they're not a dictatorship exactly, but not a democracy either. unfortunately, the usa can't take the high road much in situations like these. also, the republican morons calling for god knows exactly what aggression? I saw a short clip of palin addressing the NRA. all she does is stand up and say things that are without thought or possible and her mindless followers bellow there approval. McCain should be impeached for bringing her into American national life.....

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Thor A. Larsen

4/29/2014 02:32:01 pm

George, your recollection of your visit to Russia in 1986 reminded me of our visit to Russia in 1976 when it was just opening for tourists. We came there in the winter (cheap tour) but climate was same as Woodstock NY where we lived. Our experiences in Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) were actually very positive. There were police or military people everywhere and we were watched as we left our hotel, but no thugs walking around. Even the times we went around Moscow on our own, the police we met were very polite and helpful in providing directions. As you noted, there were many elderly ladies doing many paid-for tasks as they were the widows of the huge number of Russian soldiers killed in the war. On each floor of our hotel there was a lady watching our coming and going. One morning, after Arlene realized she had lost a glove, the woman on our floor lifted t up as we came out of our room, apparently, Arlene had dropped it as we went out the day before. Russians were afraid to talk to us except in a couple of instances, but even then vey briefly. In one instance, in a park, a few young people came to us, wanting to trade pins for pencils, a police car came rapidly out of nowhere and chased the kids. (If we had been trading monies, we would have been apprehended). In net, follow their rules, you could enjoy your stay and would be safe. We visited the Kremlin, museums, famous churches, Gum, rode the subway etc, mostly on a tour, but some on our own. In all the places we went we saw no ‘thugs’ just armed police or soldiers with their machine guns and heavy coats, and we felt very safe. As Russia changed from a ‘police state’, I believe that is when the ‘thugs’ began to appear.

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George Vecsey

4/30/2014 01:33:09 am

Thor, that is a paradox.
We had hall ladies in our very nice hotel (facing St. Basil) . And an army officer as hall guard.
He was from Kazakhstan and had not heard much about Chernobyl.
My wife told him to access the army library and read up.
Next day he told her he had no idea how bad it was.
People were extremely nice. I always think about that.
George

Reply

Thor A. Larsen

4/30/2014 02:23:12 am

George,

Yes, my assessment of our safety etc with all those machine -gun toting soldiers was a paradox, but that is exactly how we felt. We also stayed at a hotel facing St. Basil, which was an old hotel called Hotel National, the hotel Lenin lived at for a number of years,

George Vecsey

4/30/2014 05:15:48 am

Lenin's room is still intact, I think. Or maybe they have stopped that, now that it's Oligarchism instead of Communism.
All those old babushkas lost pensions and/or buying power with the rise of the oligarchs.
We had a room at the Moskva Hotel....almost a suite because we were a married couple during the Goodwill Games. Marianne would go out to the open market on the Arbat and buy vegetables from farmers free-lancng the good stuff, and she would make me salads in our suite. She was subsisting on blini in Gorky Park -- food was scarce in 1986.
But the tough guys in church looked well fed.
GV

I'm encouraged by all the comments on Moscow. When our pre-trip to Kiev was cancelled, we also considered canceling the Moscow post trip as a protest. However, my father's family and my wife's parents were from the Ukraine, and when we ever get back to the Baltic region again?

Our guide to the Baltic capitals, St. Petersburg and Moscow is from Vilinus, so we expect to get some very interesting perspectives.

My cousin, who spoke fluent Russian, would lead two week business/pleasure trips to Russia for young presidents of companies to make business contacts. He decided to not let them know that he understood Russian, which advantages and disadvantages.

The most difficult aspect of this was when the Russian hosts were drinking vodka and telling jokes after dinner. Russians are known for their jokes and he did not know how he was able to keep a straight face.

However, he felt that they were always testing him. He would occasionally receive phone calls in the middle of the night with urgent mesages, such as to leave his room immediately as there was a fire in the hotel. Although very groggy, he always responded in English.

At the end of one day, he discovered something was stolen from his room. Knowing that rooms were monitored, he cursed out loud. At the end of the next day, the item was back.

My cousin always said that Russia was a third world country in that they could develop a space program, but could not move vegetables from one part of the country to another to feed their people.

At the end of one day, he discovered something was stolen from his room. Knowing that rooms were monitored, he cursed out loud. At the end of the next day, the item was back.

Reply

Thor A. Larsen

6/30/2014 04:52:59 am

I thought it is appropriate to add now an unexpected dimension to the discussion about Russia and Ukraine. We just returned from a trip to Ireland and on this trip, we met a Russian couple now living in Florida. He is a writer, who disturbed the government wishes in the 1980's and they came to US. I asked him about the Ukraine situation and he was adamant that Eastern Ukraine should be part of Russia! He said the US press does not cover the issue very well and it is very complicated. Well, I liked the person and his intellect, and he must share this view with many Russians in Russia and outside of Russia, and alhough I totally disagree, I respect his view. Well, just wanted to share with your readership that the Ukraine issue is much more complicated than we appear to be aware of,

Though Dean was remembered for wearing a red win breaker in the role, the bad boy stereotype he gained with it was transcended into his everyday life and he was rarely ever seen without his Schott Perfecto after the film’s success. Dean’s stamp of approval would solidify the jacket as a symbol that stood against rigid authority and behavioural expectations imposed by the government and society at the time.